Looking back, Aimee Carriere says she knows she didn’t do her due diligence as she normally would have when hiring a contractor.
She thought she could trust Alan Hrehirchuk to do the work, since their kids played hockey together.
Plus, she says he’d done work for another hockey family, and says he boasted a celebrity endorsement from the HGTV show Property Brothers at the rink one day.
“I was like, ‘What’s the harm, I’ll see him every day. It’s just a couple exterior doors and two small bathrooms.’ Where can he go, right?” said Carriere.
So, Carriere says she hired Hrehirchuk in May 2024.
But she says by summer, she started to worry about work not being done, tradespeople not getting paid and items that were supposedly purchased not showing up.
Carriere says in the end, she gave Hrehirchuk $40,000 and paid out another $10,000 to unpaid tradespeople. She then cashed in RRSPs to foot the bill to fix and finish the work he never did.
She figures a job that was budgeted for about $50,000 ended up costing her more than double that.
“This has hindered us for sure — no vacation, no roof, no nothing.… It’s disheartening,” said Carriere.
After getting nowhere with Hrehirchuk on her own, she decided to contact police.
In July, Hrehirchuk was charged with fraud over $5,000 and failing to comply with a Service Alberta’s director’s order that prohibited him from operating as a pre-paid contractor.
The Service Alberta order was issued in October 2023, after criminal charges were laid against Hrehirchuk. An investigation found he breached the province’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA) by having clients sign prepaid contracts that were “harsh, oppressive or excessively one-sided.”
In April 2024, Hrehirchuk pleaded guilty to forgery, while fraud charges were withdrawn. He had been accused of forging subcontractor invoices and defrauding a couple who spent more than $100,000 on work they say was never done.
A judge granted him a conditional discharge, which meant his conviction wouldn’t be registered on his record.
That was one month before taking on Carriere’s job.
Carriere says after this costly lesson, she now urges people to do some digging before they hire anyone, regardless of who it is.
“Even if you think you know somebody or you have the same circle of friends, Google someone for sure, at the very least just Google them, find out everything you possibly can,” she said.
Hrehirchuk is expected to appear in court on these latest charges on Aug. 26.
His lawyer has declined to comment.
Back in April 2024, Hrehirchuk apologized in court after pleading guilty and told a judge he “screwed up.”
“He has suffered and will continue to suffer significantly as a result of … making two stupid mistakes,” said Justice Harry Van Harten at the time.
However, the judge and Crown both noted that financial losses to the victims also came in the form of having to pay a second contractor to finish their renovations.
Prosecutors had sought a conditional sentence, with a portion of the six-month term on house arrest followed by a curfew. Defence lawyer Cory Wilson argued the situation was “not a classical contractor scam.”
Wilson claimed the company had grown too quickly, adding suppliers started requiring Hrehirchuk to pay up front, which he couldn’t do, so he forged the invoices because he was embarrassed to ask for the money up front.
“I’m truly sorry. I screwed up majorly, and it’s cost me pretty much everything,” Hrehirchuk said when he addressed the court.
CBC had also spoke to several people in 2023 who claimed they were victims as police investigated further allegations. Two homeowners said Hrehirchuk used a Property Brothers celebrity endorsement to entice clients.
